XXXIV

The Seven showed up to travel with us to the Greywood Mausoleum. Unlike Death and the other Fallen, none of the reapers had wings, which meant we had to travel by car.

Leo, Wolf, Gunner, and Flash traveled in one, while I traveled in another, sandwiched between a stoic Denim and an exasperated Blade in the back of a Cadillac. Romeo boasted in the driver's seat about how he'd coined the term ménage à trois in 1856, explained why monogamy is a social trap, and expounded on other Romeo-related topics.

". . . and that is why I get along so well with gynecologists," Romeo said as we pulled into a bare parking lot.

"Shut," Blade hissed, gripping his head, "the fuck. Up."

Romeo snickered. "Clearly, I'm not the only one suffering from high testosterone levels in this vehicle."

"Enough," Denim warned. "Both of you."

Suddenly, dark-winged angels hit the ground, surrounding the Cadillac. The shadows of their menacing wings tucked gracefully into their backs. I counted at least ten.

"Death's Fallen," Romeo said and cut the engine. "Just a precaution to protect you, love. Let's do this thang."

Denim and Blade got out of the Cadillac. I scooched out after Denim and slammed the door behind me. The Fallen moved into formation with their hands clasped behind their backs. One with a buzz cut stepped forward as Leo approached.

"I am Reaper León, Lead Commandant of the Seven," Leo said. "What is your status?"

"I am Fallen Morax, Battle Order Lead Commander, Legion Six-Nine," said Buzz Cut. Morax's black eyes flicked to each of the reapers before landing on me with a brief flicker of surprise. "Is that . . . ?"

"Yes, this is the girl," Leo answered. "She is to be protected at all costs."

The horde of hooded soldiers swiveled their heads to look at me, whispering amongst themselves.

"You're kind of a big deal in Hell," Gunner whispered at my ear. "You might want to say something charming for your first impression."

Feeling incredibly under pressure, I raised a hand with a peace sign. "Greetings, Legion Sixty-Nine."

Romeo burst out laughing.

Morax turned his attention back to Leo. "Upon Lucifer's order, I have thirty Fallen surrounding the perimeter of the cemetery. I await orders from His Highness, Lord Death. When can we expect his arrival?"

As Leo and Morax discussed strategy, I heard a slight rustling from above us. My gaze moved heavenward, and I squinted at a small shadow above us, a raven sitting in an old maple tree. My heart rate picked up as I thought of Malphas and our encounter in the projection.

Wolf grabbed me by the shoulder. "You're gonna hang back with Denim and me. In the Cadillac."

"You can't be serious," I said. "We're waiting in the parking lot while all of them go in to kick some demon ass? What if they need help?"

"There are thirty other Fallen for backup," Denim said, steering me toward the car. "Neither of us wants to babysit a mortal tonight, but it's Death's orders."

Instead of arguing that I didn't need to be babysat and Death was in no frame of mind to be making last-minute decisions about my involvement, I planted my feet and crossed my arms over my chest, trying to look as intimidating as possible.

"Denim and Wolf, I command you let me into that cemetery."

They shared a look and chuckled.

It had been worth a shot.

"Get into the Cadillac, pipsqueak," Wolf said. "Before I throw you over my shoulder."

Before I could argue further, Death landed like a cat on top of the Cadillac. His mismatched green eyes were nearly black in the night, the lower portion of his face was covered by that black scarf, and he wore his cowl. He pounced onto the hood of the car and hit the pavement gracefully.

"Faith is coming with us," Death said.

My heart skipped a beat.

Wolf spoke up for us all. "But you said—"

"I changed my mind," Death snapped. "She's coming with us. Got it?"

"Yes, my lord."

Under his breath, Romeo muttered bitterly, "Always a dramatic entrance. Did he have to dent my hood like that?"

Death stalked past the group of hooded soldiers and moved fearlessly toward the entryway of the Greywood Cemetery. He kicked open the massive black cast iron gate.

"So much for a surreptitious entrance," I muttered.

Neither the stars nor the moon showed up to light the way as we trudged into the boneyard blanketing the dead. The rotting smell of earth brought awareness of the corpses lingering beneath the rows upon rows of tombstones fading out of sight. I'd never been in a cemetery at night, and I yearned for this to be the last time.

"You smell that?" Denim asked Morax.

"Indeed," Morax answered.

"It's getting stronger," Romeo replied.

"Whoever smelt it dealt it," Flash joked.

We approached a fountain at a fork in the pathway leading to the mausoleum. An overpowering metallic odor filled my nostrils. I peered down into the dark water, a chill slipping down my spine.

I looked across the fountain at Death. "Mortal blood," he said. "It's fresh."

Wolf's nostrils flared. "The scent lingers all over the ground."

It was too quiet. With every uncertain step, my boots crunched over dry leaves. The ominous feeling that we were being watched made my heart pound. I kept searching for Death's looming frame ahead of us, finding a sense of security that he was in sight.

"I was starting to think you wouldn't show."

Morax and his Fallen soldiers drew their swords, and the reapers readied their weapons. Leo and Wolf moved to either side of me, but Death remained unruffled, calmly turning to face Master Vampire Duncan. Duncan stood with an arrogant confidence that he was in control of this situation, his hands clasped behind his back. He wore no armor and had no visible weapon.

"Look at what you've brought me," Duncan said, gesturing with open arms. "A whole little militia to pick apart!"

"We want proof of life," Death growled. "Show us the warlock."

Duncan laughed, his elongated canines prominent. "You're getting ahead of yourself, Grim. This cemetery is so magnificent at dusk. Especially tonight when the scent of mortal blood overpowers the decay. Can you tell I started the party already? Apologies, I would have let you watch the massacre of the mortal hogs, but my newborns were so . . . thirsty."

"We didn't come to chitchat," I snapped, drawing Duncan's cynical eyes toward mine. Wolf gave me a swift pinch on my left arm that told me to keep my mouth shut, but I ignored him.

Figures that I hadn't noticed before shifted in the night, darting in and out behind gravestones, leaping down from trees and hovering in the dark surrounding us.

Blade flicked out his hands. Two blades popped into his palms as he fanned out to the left with Gunner trailing right behind him with a crossbow. Gunner aimed at the approaching figures, and the beam of light attached to the rim of the bow illuminated the chilling faces of oncoming vampires. Unlike Duncan, these vampires were gruesomely ugly. Drool seeped down the corners of their mouths.

"Hate to be cliché," Duncan said, "but you've fallen right into our trap."

His smile was broad, smug.

Blade's lip curled up in disgust as he nudged Romeo. "The hell is up with this guy's smile?"

"It is a bit of a quirky smile for a villain," Romeo said. "Very odd . . . and gummy."

Death snickered darkly. "Hardly saw any teeth."

"There's nothing wrong with my smile!" Duncan shouted. "Screw the bunch of you. You're all imbeciles. Slaves to Lucifer and his corrupt ideals of how the creatures of the night should live."

"You fail to recognize the importance of the balance," Leo said. "Good and evil must have common ground. Without that, the mortal realm will fall into complete anarchy."

"Lucifer does not care about the balance or fairness," Duncan argued. "Otherwise, he would never have smothered the voices of vampires. We were here first. Yet, for nearly four hundred years, vampires have been forced to comply with Lucifer's reign."

"And for good reason," Wolf said. "Vampires have caused more turmoil between species than any other. Quarreling among lycans and shapeshifters."

Duncan cocked his head and laughed. "Lycans are filthy, despicable creatures jam-packed with stupidity from inbreeding—" His mouth parted, and his silver eyes widened slightly as he feigned realization. "Ah, wait. Aren't you that Seven who used to fuck a legendary alpha's mate? Until he found out and put her down, of course." He tapped his chin with a sharp nail. "Say, didn't he rip out her spine and feed her bones to his devotees? What a shame. But it is a dog-eat-dog world."

Wolf lunged for Duncan's throat before Flash and Gunner grabbed him and hauled him back. "At least she had backbone, you spineless tick!" Wolf snarled.

Duncan continued. "Vampires have been forced into hiding, forced to live on limited territory, and forced to hunt on certain grounds, all while the Seven and Death's Fallen live like spoiled royalty." Duncan's eyes darkened as they swung to Death. "And you, Death, are responsible."

Vampires emerged all around us. Dread churned my stomach as they surrounded our much smaller army. The reapers and Death's Fallen prepared to fight.

"More vamps coming from the east." Leo's eyes glowed as he held his sword out in front of him. "My lord?"

Death laughed darkly under his breath. "Blood is the only thing that keeps your life essence animated. And you wasted it, decorated this graveyard with it." His voice gradually rose with each word, beckoning everyone to listen. "All to create the illusion you're in control and not Ahrimad's pawn! As if you aren't already a hostage to your own undying hunger, as if your body isn't unbearably thrumming right this second, begging for you to wet your dry mouth and taste the blood seeping into this ground."

A few of the vampires around Duncan became distracted and flicked their hungry, beady eyes to the ground and to their shoes, stained with crimson.

Energy crackled in the air like static electricity, and I could have sworn the ground gave a slight tremble. Shadows slunk across the ground beneath Death, unfolding from the darkness, consuming the pathway to the mausoleum.

"Tonight," Death said, his voice booming over the graveyard, "you have soaked this graveyard in your demise. The mortal lives you have slain shall not be wasted. Not with a god in your company."

The sky ruptured with lightning, striking the fountain between us and the enemy. As the vampires lurched back, Death launched into the sky with a single jump, levitating high over the graveyard. His skin darkened to the color of night, a horrific, hellish silhouette of a monster against the moonbeams. Two enormous wings, concealed in obsidian shadows, beat the air in thunderous, rhythmic strokes, and the trees bent away from the movement as if in fear.

He was a reawakened nightmare: skin like midnight, wicked horns curving down the side of his skull, his bare upper body rippling with lethal muscle. The green hues in his eyes were masked by dusk, a lethal fury pouring outward in the form of a noxious smoke. Darkness expelled from his every pore, haloed the crest of his head like a magnificent crown, and curtained behind his back—a royal cloak fashioned from shadows.

"I call upon the dead of night," Death's monstrous, guttural voice thundered. "Souls from Hell, I summon. Draw from the crimson life soaking these graves. Awaken, my dead. Crawl from your dark depths and serve me. Awaken, awaken, awaken, bones from beneath. Stir from your slumber and rise. Rise, and serve your master!"

The ground shuddered with such force that it sent us all off-balance. Stone cracked in the distance, gravestones fracturing one by one, row by row, the bone-chilling moans of the dead unleashing across the graveyard.

How much had Death sacrificed to unleash his full power? All that energy and without his scythe—could he come back from it?

Shadows hissed from all directions, strobing in and out between the shapes of creatures and formless tendrils. They crawled against the ground on all fours, approaching the vampires. One of the vampires dared to attack the darkness, but it latched on to him like a parasite. It plunged into his open mouth and down his throat, and the vampire dropped with a gurgled, painful scream, as if his insides were being shredded apart in a blender. The vampire's body jolted, and skin suctioned to bone as the shadow ripped the life straight out of him.

Death soared over the graveyard with two screaming vampires in his clutches. He tossed their mutilated bodies to the earth and spiraled down for seconds, snatching two more newborns with his massive claws and tearing their heads right off. His enormous wings arched down, pitching his monstrous frame back into the night, the wicked rumble of his laughter thundering over the pandemonium.

He was bathing in the grisly glory of the war beneath him.

The shadow finished as a horde of, well, zombies and skeletal animated creatures lurched into the clearing in the graveyard with pulsing auras of dark power.

"Hell yeah!" Wolf roared, holding a vampire head in his hand. "It's Z-War up in here, bitches!"

The vampires sprang back in shock, knocking into one another to get away as the shadows and undead corpses slunk closer. The stench of rot overpowered the air as the zombies opened their decayed jaws with horrifying howls and attacked the vampires in swarms. The shadows and corpses glided where they were needed to imprison and debilitate the vampires enough so that the reapers and Death's Fallen were able to finish the job and decapitate them.

"Party time, boys!" Denim said, cocking his machine gun.

"Yee-haw!" Flash shouted.

Death slashed his hand through the air, and shadows sliced into the blood of the fountain, spraying it everywhere. The newborns lurched toward the fountain to lap at the blood with their tongues. A trap, as Death's Fallen and the reapers slaughtered the bunch of them.

Suddenly, three vampires jumped on Leo at the same time as hands clamped down on my arm and my mouth. The world blurred. Then I was being dragged back underneath the shadows of trees and shrubbery.

Crashing back to earth, I writhed against my captor, the slippery material of my jacket aiding in a miracle as I wrenched free and rolled across the dirt. A foot kicked me hard in the stomach. Romeo's padded vest between the foot and my abdomen thankfully absorbed the impact.

" This must be the mortal Ahrimad wants," a vampire hissed.

"She's just an ordinary girl," said another.

They grabbed my ankles and hauled me across the dirt. This time, I writhed against the ground and managed to turn over, kicking out as hard as possible with my free leg. The clink of metal rang out like a bell as the toe of my heavy boot slammed into solid flesh. Chiclet-sized pellets fell into my lap. His fangs. The vampire cried out, and adrenaline coursed through my veins. I fired a beam of power at the vampire, who went airborne and splintered a tree.

I stood up fast. The will to survive took over, but I couldn't see how many vampires were in this space. I couldn't see anything. My mind harked back to training with Death, how he'd turned off the lights and forced me to listen.

Shuffling. I had hardly a second to react to the blur of another vampire attacking. An icy palm cracked across my face. My whole body flipped in midair before I slammed into the frozen ground. I must have bitten down on my lip because I tasted blood. Pain exploded in my face, and involuntary tears sprang to my eyes.

A lone newborn vampire approached with its fangs elongating in its mouth. It reached out, grabbed me by the throat, and squeezed. I struggled with all my might to get one last gasp of air when the vampire cried out and its grip loosened. I landed on my back as blood sprayed over me. As the vampire roared in agony, I realized its hand, which had been wrapped around my throat, was severed completely from its arm, and the limb still dangled from my neck. I shrieked and chucked it off me. It landed with a splat in the grass.

Whoosh! The vampire reeled back again with a choked sound, and through the gaps in the trees, the moon shone enough to show the one-handed vampire clutching at its chest. Another object sliced through the air like a bullet and perforated its neck, with the sickening noise of blood spraying. Still, the creature focused on its task and stumbled toward me with its jaws wide open.

Blade sprinted into the clearing and leapt onto the vampire, tackling it to the ground. His one weapon impaled the vampire's eye, while his other sliced the vampire's neck to the bone.

Two more vampires followed behind Blade, wounded but alive.

One of them came toward me, and my body vibrated with fear. Light shone from my right hand before I fired a punch out, slamming into the porcelain jaw of another newborn. I ducked at the sideways swipe of a hand toward my face and landed in a low crouch. Blade dove over me and rolled onto his feet to slice another newborn to pieces.

Another vampire grabbed my armor and threw me ten feet, my teeth digging into my lips as pain exploded in my shoulder. Blade released a howl, and I turned my head in time to see a vampire bite down on his neck and rip off flesh.

Beside me, I found the splintered tree where I'd thrown another vampire. I tugged hard at piece of wood to free it and moved with a newfound madness to kill. Sprinting into a lunge, I drove the spiked wood through the back of the vampire attacking Blade. The vampire released the reaper and spun, just in time to meet my reared-back fist. Gloved knuckles demolished bone with a sickening crunch at the sonic boom of my power.

I turned to look back over my shoulder and arched my leg up in a backward roundhouse, kicking the last vampire in the face. Blade finished him off by ripping his head off and kicking the dead corpse away with a crunching wallop.

With no other creatures to fight, Blade and I breathed hard and looked at each other across the clearing, a pile of dismembered vampires in our midst.

"Jesus Christ, your neck."

He clamped a hand to the wound on his neck with a wince. "Fucking fang-face venom. Makes me heal slower."

I quickly shrugged off my backpack and searched for a first aid kit. When I sprayed some kind of magical antiseptic on his wound, Blade hissed and glared at me like an animal. Like Death. Deciding Blade should take over, I handed him the first aid kit. He took out a big piece of gauze and slapped it haphazardly onto his neck.

"The other six were neck-deep in battle, and Leo got pinned," Blade said. "Somebody had to make sure you stayed in one piece."

"I thought you hated me."

"I hate everyone, lassie. Equally."

"Well, thanks for the help."

"Don't mention it." Blade swiped his knives across his pants to clean them. "You were impressive back there. There may be hope for you yet."

We hurried back to the battlefield and jumped into the anarchy. Gunner took out creatures one by one from his perch in a tree, releasing arrow after arrow from his crossbow, spearing them in their skulls and hearts. Leo was on the ground with Death's Fallen, cleaving away with his sword, while Denim and Wolf sprayed bullets that sizzled as they met the vampires' flesh. Romeo and Flash were tag-teaming with hand-to-hand combat.

Ravens cried out in a frightening chorus, circling the sky in a swarm that drew everyone's attention. Demons re-formed from the ravens, ambushing the reapers with their blackened fangs, claws, and terrifying porcelain faces.

Malphas's raven underlings. Which meant Malphas was close too.

A mighty wind raged as the ravens came plummeting to the earth. I leapt back with a scream to avoid getting speared by their beaks and fell to the ground.

The second my head hit the grass, images flashed through my mind like a dream on mute.

Ahrimad . . . He was in the mausoleum. Death's old cloak hung off his body, but he looked too thin, too sickly, like a parasite had drained him from the inside out. He stood in front of a floor-to-ceiling mirror with a surface like water. As he turned away from the portal, he silently roared, his eyes glowing a wrathful amber. The skin of his face pressed tighter against his skull. His scythe swung out, his face taut with fury, the portal rippling closed behind him—

Suddenly, I was back in the graveyard, my mind scrambling as I hurried to my feet. I was trying to understand what I'd seen when I noticed a wall of shadows in front of me. I was trapped, untouched by the sounds of war around me, surrounded by Death's shadows. A barrier had formed between me and them. Between me and everybody . And they all continued to fight, unaware of this.

The shadow prison stretched outward, forming a larger clearing of darkness. When I tried to escape, the darkness hissed and spewed out toward me like claws, and I reeled away from it with a shriek.

The adrenaline shooting through my veins told me these shadows weren't protecting me.

They were containing their prey.

Coldness spilled down my spine. I whirled around as Death's boots touched the ground. He stood tall and monstrous with his wings tucked behind his back, his head pointed slightly down. Posed, like a deadly statue. And for a horrifying second, I didn't think he recognized me.

All I knew for sure was that I had been imprisoned by these shadows. For him.

Above us, more ravens circled like vultures.

Death moved in a blur, sprinting toward me. He picked me up and bounded off the ground, hurling us both into the night before a scream could rip through me.